Gerrit
09/04/2005, 10:05 PM
I was just wondering... It must be quite hard to get a fanbase as a university club. Most people who come to college and support soccer already have a favourite team from the years before uni, and once graduated people leave university life behind them. Also, part of the students leave Dublin for the weekends and so they can't be at the games.
For people living near Belfield I can imagine they may have problems associating with a team named after the university. It's not like a team having the name of the quarter in its name ; I can imagine for them supporting UCD may be like supporting a team from a company without working at the company, they may not go because they think it's not "their team" because they don't go to college.
How do you guys attract your crowd ? Are your fans mainly students or ex-students, or do you also get supporters who are in no way affiliated to the college ?
And what about the players ? Are those all students or do you have players s well that have no direct connection to the uni ?
I was just wondering these things because seeing a college team in the top flight is quite strange in a positive way. Except for Academica Coimbra (Portugal) and UCD, not a single country in Western Europe has a college team in its highest divisions. In my native Belgium it's even very unusual to see student teams exist at all. So I was just wondering about "how UCD works".
I met some guys when they played at Shels, but the answers to these questions varied from person to person, so that's why I am asking here for the one and only truth ;)
The few guys I spoke to by the way were very nice lads, good luck to you in your first season back amongst the big guys. I hope you can save yourselves, and to be honest I don't see you guys go down again.
For people living near Belfield I can imagine they may have problems associating with a team named after the university. It's not like a team having the name of the quarter in its name ; I can imagine for them supporting UCD may be like supporting a team from a company without working at the company, they may not go because they think it's not "their team" because they don't go to college.
How do you guys attract your crowd ? Are your fans mainly students or ex-students, or do you also get supporters who are in no way affiliated to the college ?
And what about the players ? Are those all students or do you have players s well that have no direct connection to the uni ?
I was just wondering these things because seeing a college team in the top flight is quite strange in a positive way. Except for Academica Coimbra (Portugal) and UCD, not a single country in Western Europe has a college team in its highest divisions. In my native Belgium it's even very unusual to see student teams exist at all. So I was just wondering about "how UCD works".
I met some guys when they played at Shels, but the answers to these questions varied from person to person, so that's why I am asking here for the one and only truth ;)
The few guys I spoke to by the way were very nice lads, good luck to you in your first season back amongst the big guys. I hope you can save yourselves, and to be honest I don't see you guys go down again.